It was only a matter of time before Uber began testing out a self-driving car. Whether that car will ferry you to your destination one day is another matter but you’d have to think that taking drivers out of the loop would solve a lot of issues for the company. Payment, for one.
But the company’s autonomous vehicle exists and we know what it looks like thanks to an annoucement on their website. Uber’s self-driving car, a modified Ford Fusion, is coming from the company’s Advanced Technologies Centre (ATC) and will be tooling around the city of Pittsburgh. The point? Some real-world testing.
Uber’s vehicle will “…be collecting mapping data as well as testing its self-driving capabilities. When it’s in self-driving mode, a trained driver will be in the driver’s seat monitoring operations.”
“The Uber ATC car comes outfitted with a variety of sensors including radars, laser scanners, and high resolution cameras to map details of the environment.”
The company has said that they are looking to make the roads safer but you have to think that a robotic fleet of cars is on their mind. They do say that it’s still “early days” and if they can help to move the world to safer roads overall, we’re okay with that. Even if they do want an autonomous vehicular army at the end of all of the research.
Source: Uber